


Concussed

by CuriosityRedux



Series: Dragon Drabbles Berk [66]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 17:21:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16769527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuriosityRedux/pseuds/CuriosityRedux
Summary: It's just some mild amnesia...





	1. Chapter 1

**Concussed**

**-**

“Everybody hush! I think he’s waking up!”

Hiccup winced at the sharp pain splitting through his skull. Something that was probably fingertips probed at the back of his head, making him gasp, but it felt too much like a knife point to be sure. Murky light stabbed through his eyelashes, and the world spun as he moaned and forced his heavy lids back.

Gothi’s wizened eyes peered into his, her nose wrinkled with an expression that straddled the line between perplexity and irritation. Her hand withdrew, confirming his suspicion that someone had been pressing at his scalp and then waved towards someone else in the room. 

She disappeared, and his father took his place. “Hiccup? Thank Odin! Yeh had me worried there, son.” He lightly chucked him under the chin with his fist, and Hiccup narrowed his eyes. Why did his father seem so strange? Almost as if his beard had faded from a rich ginger to a brassy copper. Silver streaked his braids, and there were wrinkles where Hiccup was sure they weren’t that morning. 

“Dad?” Hiccup croaked. Even his own voice sounded weird, but that was probably due to the ringing in his ears. “What’s going on?”

“Yeh got brave with that Thor-forsaken suit of yers! Flew straight over the village. Cracked yer head against the cliffside and scared the wool off of Hoark’s flock.”

The boy cringed and lifted a heavy hand to his hair. So much of his father’s sentence made no sense— suit? Flew over a _house_? But an invention of his going awry? That sounded normal. There was, at least, that much.

He closed his eyes to stop the earth’s tilting and tried to recollect what had put him in such a painful state. Everything was a bit fuzzy, hazy, dimmed and muffled as if he was trying to watch his thoughts from underwater. He quickly realized that he couldn’t remember waking up that morning, or even whether or not there was a raid the night before. When he tried a differenct tactic, trying to focus on whatever it was that had sent him flying, he only became more confused. His only recent project was his bola launcher, not a suit, and even that was in its early stages of development. 

“Dad, I—” he cringed at the light when he opened his eyes again. “I think I’m missing some memories.”

“Ah, ta be expected,” Stoick chuckled. There was a bizarre… _easiness_ to his face, an unusual sight for his usually stern and scowling father. “Don’t worry, son, it’s happened ta the best of us. They clear up eventually.”

Hiccup raised his brows an inch at the light answer. Stifling a grunt, he tried to sit up on his elbows, but the motion made his stomach lurch. He fell back against his pillows and groaned. 

Stoick twisted around and made a beckoning hand gesture. “Go get Astrid and Toothless, Gobber. Tell her Hiccup’s fine.”

“Astrid?” The thought of the intimidating blond beauty had Hiccup stammering. “She was there?” Then his brain snagged on another, even more baffling word. “Toothless?”

The chief of Berk laughed like his son had just told a hilarious joke. “Aye, Toothless! Night Fury? Offspring of lightning and death? Destroyer of my best house slippers?”

“Night… Fury…?” Hiccup’s words were faint. _He_ felt faint. 

The door to Gothi’s house was suddenly slammed open, making the boy jump and sending pain crackling through his temples. There was a blur— just a flash of black scales. Hiccup saw the dark wings, the sharp claws, the almost fluorescent green eyes fixed on him, and he did what every man in his right man would do. He screamed.

Stoick roared with laughter again, and sheer panic gripped Hiccup for a full heartbeat before the dragon pounced. Its tongue lapped excitedly at his face, leaving slimy trails of saliva even as the boy squirmed and struggled. In his fear, he noticed that the Night Fury shook and wiggled happily, and the expression Hiccup caught glimpses of through his fingers seemed to be… _smiling_.

Was he dreaming? This _had_ to be a dream, but usually his dreams didn’t hurt so damn bad. Actually, hallucinating was more likely, he told himself as he dodged dragon spit. 

“Hiccup!” There was suddenly a new voice in the room, and he looked up just in time to lose himself in the blue-eyed gaze of the most beautiful young woman he’d ever seen. 

“Ast-Astrid?” Hiccup swallowed, recognizing the facial structure but unable to reconcile the image of his hard, frosty crush with this gorgeous, curvaceous maiden.

“I’ve been worried sick, you idiot!"The blonde ran to him, and the dragon stepped aside just in time for her to leap onto the foot of his bed. She crawled— _crawled_ — to his side and then took his face in his. Then she was leaning over him and molding her mouth to his in the most dizzying, breathtaking, delicious (first) kiss of his life. 

"Yeah,” he rasped when she released him. “Definitely hallucinating." 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW Warning

“Nope. Nothing.”

“Seriously?” Astrid’s voice— which had so far ranged from incredulous to intrigued— was colored with quiet disappointment. The hesitant smile she’d been holding fell. “Not even a little bit?”

“Well, it’s familiar,” he amended with a nervous laugh. At this point, he was beginning to consider pretending to find his memories. Anything to keep the dismay out of those blue, blue eyes.

Had they always been that blue? Hiccup wasn’t sure. He thought they’d been the bluest thing he’d ever seen, but that was apparently five years ago, and they’d only gotten clearer and purer with time. Her lashes had gotten longer, framing those orbs with something akin to gold, and all the childhood had melted away from her features. So those big blue eyes stood out even more, watching him with a fondness and an affection that he was finding impossibly sincere.

She thought it was funny. Every time he started stammering when he caught her looking at him, or when he lost his train of thought at her fingers lacing with his— she’d laugh and roll her eyes. And he’d promptly swoon at the pretty blush on her cheeks. She’d aged in a way that even he couldn’t have expected— softening sharp features and smoothing out the freckles along the bridge of her nose. She’d always had a nice shape, but her curves had only blossomed in the past five years, in ways that made him avert his gaze with guilt. He still wasn’t sure what surprised him more, the dragons that had taken residence in Berk or the fact that he was engaged to the most beautiful woman on the island.

And speaking of islands, this one _was_ familiar in a way. But not any more or less than every other place he’d been dragged. It was prettier, maybe. Soft green grass with tall purple flowers that were probably weeds but looked like lovely bouquets. Tall trees melting into a thriving forest, and moss covered rocks scattered about. It seemed deserted, like the majority of the places Astrid had shown him from the map in his notebook. And while he had the warm sense that he’d been there a thousand times, not a single specific memory jolted to the forefront of his mind.

He watched her kick at a clod of dirt with her boot and sigh, folding her arms over her chest and putting distance between them. Toothless and Stormfly were already missing, though they could hear their playful noises some distance away. “I was kind of hoping this place… I don’t know. Whatever.” Her gaze narrowed as she inspected the tree line and screwed her mouth to the side.

“What happened here?” he asked. She took him to the cove, where supposedly he and Toothless had hidden for weeks. She took him to dragon island, where they told him he and Toothless took down a dragon larger than the Great Hall. And she dragged him all over the village, from one place to another, asking if he remembered this conversation or that event. The answer was always, unfortunately, no.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t remember anything. He did. He heard echos of dialogue sometimes when he wasn’t paying attention. The occasional expression of pride on his father’s face would pop in his mind, or the sharpness of a hammer coming down on his thumb while creating his prosthesis. He did get a flash every now and then of flying or playing with Toothless. And there was one foggy recollection that he had to have shared with Astrid. It boiled into his thoughts one night and hadn’t quite crystallized or disappeared since. But he wasn’t about to ask about it.

There were no memories. Nothing to explain the cord of something like steel that seemed to connect them. It pulled at him, drew him to her, hummed uncomfortably when she was too far. He’d pined for her long before his missing memories began, but this was nothing like the shallow crush of his childhood. It was an expertly forged bond, one that left him both achingly aware of her every move and craving a normalcy he couldn’t remember.

She shrugged and surveyed their surroundings. “Stuff. Nothing specific, I guess. We just spend a lot of time here, so it’s kind of… our place.” Slipping off her fur hood, she let it fall to the grass and sat with her back against a mossy, blooming boulder.

Hiccup took a second glance around the cliff-side. He could understand how this could become a place they’d frequent. It was beautiful, calm, relaxing. Frowning, he wished he could summon even a meaningless memory to offer her.

“I’m sorry, Astrid,” he told her, crossing the space separating them. He fell ungracefully into a sitting position next to her, wrapping his arms around one knee. “It’s kind of slow coming, I guess.”

A sad smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “You don’t have to apologize,” she assured him, glancing over for a heartbeat. “It’ll come back to you.” But he knew her disappointment ran deeper than that. He remembered his dragon and his father, but painfully little of the young woman everyone called the love of his life.

“Mm,” he mumbled. Rubbing at his sore leg, he looked to the horizon where her stare was fixated. “What do we do here?”

Her lips twitched, as if holding back laughter. “Talk. Explore. Sleep.” Jerking her chin behind them, she added, “We made out against that tree once.”

Swallowing hard, Hiccup tried not to turn his head too quickly to see the tree in question. He tried to imagine holding Astrid against it— the bark snagging her shirt, the spidery shadows of leaves cast across her hair as he lowered his mouth to hers. He could almost feel her breath gasping between them. The breeze rustled his hair, and it was like the ghost of her fingers knotting in his hair. It was entirely _too_ easy to picture, and he had to force himself to twist his gaze back to the seaside. His heart thrummed quickly in his chest.

Instead of the dozens of things darting through his brain, he said, “Oh.”

They sat in the quiet for a while. It was a surprisingly warm day, and the afternoon sun left a pleasant buzz on their shoulders. While she seemed content to sit still, never once looking away from the horizon, he felt restless. As if he should be physically _searching_ for his memories instead of waiting for them to come to him. His hands wrung nervously around the metal of his prosthesis, trying to scratch at itches that shouldn’t have been and work out aches that shouldn’t exist.

The prosthetic leg was the hardest part to accept about his new life. He had his father’s pride, his village’s adoration, an incredible Night Fury best friend, and even the heart of the girl he was crazy for. It made the entire experience feel like a dream he would soon wake up from, and maybe he would. There was the distinct possibility that his memories would return and the weirdness would fade with time. But his leg would always be gone. There was no remembering that back into existence.

“Is it bothering you?”

He glanced up at the sound of her voice, realizing he’d been glaring at his metal foot. Instead of staring into the distance, she was watching him with faint concern. His hands pulled away from the appendage and hid behind his back like a child caught with sweets. “Kinda, yeah. I know it makes no sense for it to hurt— especially if I’ve been walking on it for years, but— Astrid?”

She shifted so that she faced him, slipping her hands beneath his knees and pulling him close. Then she placed his leg across her lap. Her fingers began to work at the straps of his prosthesis.

“Astrid, stop, it’s okay.” He tried to brush her hands away, wide-eyed and stammering, but she paid no attention.

“Hiccup, right now, I’ve seen this more than you have.” The buckles that had been digging into his upper calf released with the sound of clinking metal. She gently pulled away the metal leg away and set it down beside her. Her gaze lifted to his. “I do this a lot.”

Hand still outstretched, he watched as she rolled up the raised hem of his pants until it was tight and secure just above his knee. The thick linen sock was pulled back. His jaw clenched.

“You used to climb in my window when the pains were bad,” she murmured, and then her cool palms were massaging his leg— his _stump_. Her braid fell over her shoulder as she leaned forward, rubbing the muscles where they ached the most. She seemed to know where he was stiffest, where the prosthesis pinched, where the straps had rubbed his skin raw. The soft caresses were like cold water trickling over a sunburn, or the relief of walking after a long flight (though he wasn’t sure how he knew that.) “You don’t anymore, but you still ask me to do this every now and then.”

“I can see why,” he mumbled, his eyes following the repetitive, hypnotic movements of her hands.

They were electrifying too, those hands. Pinpricks of sensation followed the friction of her touch wherever she stroked, making his breath hitch and his brain go fuzzy. It was as if all of the nerve endings in his body had been compacted into his leg, and she was ghosting past every single one.

“Hey, Astrid?” Hiccup kept his eyes lowered, not looking up from her hands.

“Mm?”

He hesitated, and then confessed, “I think I lied about remembering you.”

She paused, and he could feel her examining his face. “You remember me?” she breathed, and hope warmed her tone.

It was that sort of reaction he hadn’t wanted to receive. Cringing, he cut his gaze away and immediately regretted bringing it up. “To be honest, I— I’m not sure if it’s a real memory or… just a dream.”

She resumed her gentle work on his leg. “Tell me what it is, and I’ll let you know.”

Hiccup winced again, scratching at the still-healing wound at the back of his head. “It’s dark,” he began describing, closing his eyes against the bright light of sunshine. Immediately the hazy image leapt to focus, making his mouth go dry. “It’s definitely nighttime, and I can’t see much except what’s in front of me.”

The candlelight in his memory flickered, gleaming as it reflected off of loose blonde waves.

“It’s just your back, I think— you’re facing forward.”

A feminine gasp echoed through his thoughts, and her hair spilled to the side as she tilted her head. It was followed by a deeper, throatier sound, one that made his toes curl and his hands twitch. Pale, just barely freckled skin was exposed to the light.

His voice felt extremely far away when he whispered, “You’re naked.”

Not wanting to open his eyes and see the judgment in her expression, or the appalled fury, he sighed and continued. In his mind’s eye, his thumb traced down the curve of her throat, the plateau of her shoulder. Then he ran his fingertips down the column of her spine, making her arch against him. He felt his arm wrap around her waist and pull her close. His mouth lowered to taste her neck.

“I think we’re…”

She finished for him. Her voice was clipped and matter-of-fact. “I know what we’re doing.”

He flinched, pulling his leg from her lap. Partly because he felt guilty having her touch it, and partly because the sensations of her caresses combined with the images in his thoughts elicited a dangerous reaction from his body. “I’m sorry, Astrid. Really— I shouldn’t have even said anything.”

When she ran her fingers through his bangs and let her hand rest on his knee, he blinked in shock. He was met with those blue, blue eyes once more.

The corner of her mouth tilted higher. “That was our first time, moron.” Though she fought it, a smirk bloomed across her features. “Like I was telling you— you used to come to my window.”

Hiccup’s brows shot high. He took a breath to word his surprise, but before he could speak, her lips were stealing his.

Every atom in his body responded to her, his hands reaching out to grip her upper arms of their own volition. When he’d slid his new foot into Toothless’ flight mechanism, it switched into first gear automatically. Astrid had been ready to reteach him the positions for the tail fin, but it was muscle memory. It came to him without thinking about it. And touching her was the exact same.

Desire cracked like lightning through his system. Every innocent touch he’d blushed at, every shy brush of his shoulder against hers or his lips on her cheek— the awkwardness of his youth melted away in the sheer heat of his response. Their gasping breaths melded as they kissed. Her sweet scent filled his nostrils and made him groan. Before he knew it, she was crawling onto his lap, and his hands were kneading the soft flesh beneath her skirt.

It was as easy as breathing. His mouth rasped across the place at her neck he’d been kissing in his memory night after night. The heat of her settled over his growing arousal. She ground into him, and he used the rock at his back as leverage to press into her. Her soft little noise made electricity chill up his spine.

“You remembered,” Astrid murmured into his hair. He couldn’t get enough of the taste of her skin. “I thought you forgot everything.”

He thought he had too. But even though he couldn’t clearly sift through them, waves of memories were crashing into him. Her happy laugh, her teasing slaps, her parted lips dragging kisses lower and lower on his stomach. It was a snippet of her whispered affections with every inhale and the deluge of impassioned cries on every exhale. He fumbled for the waistband of her leggings and jerked them down, and he faintly recalled her confessing how sexy she found that. She was finding the knot of his pants— he was finding _her_.

She trembled above him, so he held her tight. When she sank down onto his throbbing length, he choked and buried his face in her neck. She was tight and slick and perfection and everything he never wanted to forget. As she began rocking into him, he slipped beneath her shirt and tugged the fabric up so that he could relearn more of her. His fingers located the knot of her bindings, and her adorable little growl reminded him how she hated having to retie them.

Pleasure gripped him. His tongue slid across skin and strips of linen as they fell away to reveal the soft swells of her breasts. Her fingers became less than gentle at the back of his neck as he kissed, nibbled, and sucked at the sensitive flesh. Her movements turned erratic and sharp. Low noises twisted from her throat and vibrated against the fingers he’d curled there.

Hiccup could feel the edge rapidly approaching, helpless beneath the relentless surging of her hips. He was caught between ecstasy and dismay— every pulse of blood through his body ached for release, to spill inside her and claim her for his own. But in the same breath, he was terrified that the moment she let go, the memories would disappear. He’d lost her once, and he’d be damned if he let it all slip through the holes in his faulty mind again.

“Let me,” he whispered, swallowing hard and brushing her bangs out of her face.

She didn’t. She whimpered a quiet moan and fixed him in those blue eyes before mumbling, “I love you, Hiccup.”

And every time she’d said those words suddenly hit him at once, with a force stronger than the cliff-side he’d smashed his head against. His traitorous body clenched and shuddered, his fingers bruising pale skin. Silvery explosions of pleasure rippled through his muscles and tore through the remainder of his sanity. He pressed his forehead into her collarbone as he gasped her name and held onto her like she might slip away with everything he’d just begun to remember.

But she didn’t.

She waited shaking and silent for him to speak again. She brushed her thumbs over his cheekbones and combed back his wild hair. When he found the strength in his arms to lift them, he wrapped them tightly around her waist and lifted his face to hers. A little smile touched her kiss-swollen lips, though her brow crinkled with concern.

“You okay?” she asked, as if she had been the one to reach climax instead of him.

Hiccup nodded. “I remembered more,” he breathed. “Scared of forgetting again.”

Her expression turned warm, and she pressed a kiss to his brow. “Don’t worry,” she murmured, dropping her forehead against his. “I’ll remind you.”


End file.
